Who Invented The Internet? Internet History: 1980–1989 Timeline (Part 5)

Encouraging Global Connectivity

The 1980’s saw a surge in the spread of the internet to new regions. These connections would be the beginning of a true world wide web and would play a large role in setting the standards and expanding internet connectivity on a global scale.

1980

In 1980 the world was witnessing the rapid growth of computer networks and new protocols. 

Mike Jensen started his project on developing networks for connecting non-profit organizations. His work would ultimately lead to the creation of a network meant for developing nations. 

Source: APC 

Jaap Akkerhuis was the leader of internet development in the Netherlands. He was also one of the important contributors for developing the internet in Europe. 

Source: Internet Hall of Fame 

Radia Perlman starts working on her Intermediate System to Intermediate System (IS-IS) protocol design. It would be used for IP routing which is still used today. It’s also used for the Spanning Tree algorithm, a technology that lets Ethernet control larger amounts of data. 

Source: Wikipedia 

The CSNet (National Science Foundation Computer Science Network) is organized and created by Professor David Farber. It was essential for creating a global internet presence. 

Source: Internet Hall of Fame 

DR. Van Houweling starts managing and overseeing all the operations on NSFnet. This was the foundation for creating the global internet network. 

Source: Wikipedia 

The Internet Activities Board is formed by Dr. Barry Leiner. Leiner was a DARPA manager who worked at IAB until 1989 and helped create various technical standards for the internet. 

Source: Internet Society 

Lawrence Landweber starts working on creating the first network gateways between the US and Europe. He created multiple gateways from the US and to other European countries. Landweber worked on this project from 1980 to 1989. During this time he also held the “Landweber Conferences” around the world to teach scientists from different countries how to set up their own research, academic, and national networks. 

Source: Internet Hall of Fame 

People Mike Jensen – born in Johannesburg, South Africa. As an internet pioneer and ICT expert he created many non-profit networks. His work helped many countries get internet connectivity. He was named the “Global Connector” by the Internet Hall of Fame.  Source: Wikipedia  Jaap Akkerhuis – born in 1951 in the Netherlands. He is one of the leading research engineers working at NLnet Labs. During the early 1980s he played the leading role in developing the internet in Europe and the Netherlands.  Source: Wikipedia  Radia Perlman – born in Portsmouth, Virginia in 1951. She is a network engineer and programmer. Her greatest achievements so far are the invention of different network standards and designs. This includes various protocols such as the STP and IS-S.  Source: Wikipedia  Van Houweling – born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1943. This computer scientist worked and led various projects related to the internet. This includes the National Science Foundation project, Internet2 project, and distributed computing.  Source: Wikipedia  David Farber – born in 1934 in the US. This computer scientist made a lot of contributions to the development of computer networks and their systems. He also worked on various programming languages. He worked on designing the SNOBOL language, the ESS-1 switching system, NREN, NSFNet, CSNET, and so on.  Source: Wikipedia  Barry Leiner – date of birth unknown. Leiner was added to the Internet Hall of Fame after his death. He helped create the Internet Architecture Board while working as one of the DARPA managers. He also established structures through which internet communication protocols were developed.  Source: Internet Hall of Fame  Technologies IS-IS – the Intermediate System to Intermediate System routing protocol helps computer networks move information a lot faster. It analyzes the network to find the best route for a piece of data being set via packet switching.  Source: Wikipedia   NSFnet – the National Science Foundation created the NSFnet, National Science Foundation Network, to help provide networked education and improved research practices. It grew into a couple of important computer networks and became essential for the formation of the internet.   Source: Wikipedia

1981

The Computer Science Network (CSNET) was created by Lawrence Landweber and computer scientists from BBN, RAND Corporation, University of Wisconsin, Purdue University, and University of Delaware. The NSF granted seed money for the project and the goal was to give network accessibility and communication services to university scientists without ARPANET. From 1981 to 1984 the network covered more than 180 government computer science, industrial, and university departments. 

Source: Purdue University 

That same year BITNET was created by Ira Fuchs and Greydon Freeman. The network was founded at the City University of New York and Yale. The acronym BITNET stood for “Because It’s Time Network.” Other universities and colleges that wanted to join the network had to get their own phone line and modems and connect without any charges. 

Source: Wikipedia 

People Ira Fuchs – born in 1948 in the United States of America. Known for being one of the co-founders of the computer network BITNET. Fuchs is also the president of a consulting firm for online learning called BITNET, LLC.  Source: Wikipedia  Technologies BITNET – one of the first co-operative computer networks. At first it connected Yale and CUNY. BITNET had a LISTSERV and Email software that could be used by anyone on the network. It offered interactive message and file transmission.  Source: Wikipedia  CSNET – The Computer Science Network was the first computer network available to research and academic computer science departments. Those organizations that couldn’t access ARPANET needed an alternative and the answer was CSNET.  Source: Wikipedia

1982

The first public WAN came to fruition in 1982. It came about in the form of the EUUG dial-up service through EUnet started by Teus Hagen. 

Source: Internet Hall of Fame 

At the same time, Asia got its own first internet connection SDN, developed by Kilnam Chon. This was a sign that scientists in Asia needed to start promoting regional internet development. 

Source: Internet Hall of Fame 

People Teus Hagen – born in Wijnjeterp, Netherlands. He started the European Unix User Group and the European Unix User Group. He also created the Eunet which was the European Unix Network. This was also the first ever public WAN. He also received the “Global Connector” acknowledgement by the Internet Hall of Fame.  Source: Wikipedia  Kilnam Chon – born in Osaka, Japan in 1943. This South Korean/Japanese computer scientist understood the value of the internet and because of his efforts South Korea was the second country after the US to be connected to the internet through the System Development Network.  Source: Wikipedia  Technologies First Public WAN – EUnet was the first ever public WLAN. At first it had 4 essential backbones. However, in just a couple of years it spread onto 21 countries and had over a 1,000 websites. EUnet used TCP/IP for its network.  Source: Internet Hall of Fame  System Development Network – SDN was the first internet network to be established in Asia by Kilnam Chon in 1982. It used similar technologies as the internet.

1983

In 1983 ARPANET finally switched to the more powerful system of protocols TCP/IP. Up until then, the network had been using Network Control Program protocols, which were already outdated. This switch marked the start of the internet as we know it today. 

Source: Wikipedia 

At the same time, the Domain Name System was invented by Paul Mockapetris, allowing the internet to expand to everyone in the world, not just people in the academic community. With the help of John Klensins, the early work definitions and procedures to be done on DNS by administration were set. 

Soure: Internet Hall of Fame 

People Paul Mockapetris – born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1948. Mockapetris and Jon Postel invented the Domain Name System for the internet. He was one of the internet pioneers and still remains a successful computer scientist.  Source: Wikipedia  John Klensin – born in 1945. A computer scientist, internet protagonist, and political scientist. He worked at the United Nations University, MIT, and was AT&T’s vice president. He worked on developing the Domain Name System and File Transfer Protocol.  Source: Wikipedia  Technologies Domain Name System – a naming system for various resources, services, and computers that are connected to some network (the internet). It looks at domain names of all entities on a network and translates them into IP addresses to find the devices and services required while using various network protocols.  Source: Wikipedia

1984

In 1984 Top level domains like .com, .edu, and .org were introduced. Their inventor Jon Postel describes top level domains as “administrative entities”. He published a series of papers from the Internet Engineering Task Force. One of the things that these documents mentioned were top level domains. 

Source: Cnet.com

That same year, the Global SchoolNet was formed by Yvonne Marie Andrés. This nonprofit educational organization looked to help various people internationally for free and introduce them to important technologies and projects. 

Source: Internet Hall of Fame 

Ben Segal started pursuing his idea of adding TCP/IP to the internet. Until 1989 he pushed this idea forward in the scientific community and CERN. Without his involvement who knows how the internet would look today. 

Source: CERN 

The first university network is developed in Japan called the JUNET. It was a Unix Network made by Jun Murai. 

Source: Internet Hall of Fame 

This was also the year when Germany received its first email. The email said “Willkommen CSNET” and it was greatly appreciated because of the contribution made by Werner Zorn to connect Germany to the internet. 

Source: Internet Hall of Fame 

People Jon Postel – born in 1943 in Altadena, California. Postel had a very successful career in computer science. His work with internet standards is praised to this day. He’s known for Postel’s Law, Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, and Request for Comment. Postel died in 1998.  Source: Wikipedia  Yvonne Marie Andrés – date of birth unknown. One of the pioneers of e-learning. She co-founded the Global SchoolNet in 1984 and the Global Schoolhouse in 1992. She was also behind the start of the Friendship Through Education Initiative.  Source: Wikiwand  Ben Segal – date of birth unknown. Ben Segal was responsible for adding TCP/IP protocol to CERN. He also introduced the organization to Application Programming Interface and IP stack. His role in shaping the internet was crucial.  Source: Internet Hall of Fame  Jun Murai – born in Tokyo, Japan in 1955. He is also called “Internet Samurai” and “father of Japanese internet”. He created the JUNET network, first of its kind in Japan. Murai also founded the WIDE project and he received the IEEE Internet Award in 2011.  Source: Wikipedia  Werner Zorn – born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany in 1942. This internet pioneer and computer scientist that worked on bringing email to Germany, connecting China with international networks, creating one of the first internet providers in Germany, and much more.  Source: Wikipedia  Technologies Top level domains – Top-level domain – a domain located at the top level of the Internet and Domain Name hierarchy. At first, the domain space for top-level domains was separated into three categories including multi organizations, categories, and countries. Initially, the ARPA infrastructure top-level domains were the only ones, but they developed along with the internet.  Source: Wikipedia  Global SchoolNet – an educational international nonprofit founded in 1984. A lot of the educational projects at Global SchoolNet use the Constructivist Learning model. This organization focuses on creating and managing projects around diplomacy, humanitarian issues, entrepreneurship, computer science, STEM, new teaching methods, and so on.  Source: Wikipedia  JUNET – the first internet network in Japan. This commuter network connected three Japanese universities including the Keio University, Tokyo Institute of Technology, and Tokyo University. Similar to USENET, JUNET also used a telephone line connection.  Source: Wikipedia

1985

The first ever domain name was recorded and registered as Symbolics.com. It was provided to the Symbolics Inc. company. 

Source: gcn.com

Stephen Wolffs Research & Education Network led to the development of a brand new network called the NSFNET. This was the first ever public network for researchers and students in the US. 

Source: Internet Hall of Fame 

People Dr. Stephen Wolff – date of birth unknown. He is one of the many internet pioneers. His greatest contribution is the fact that he was able to turn the internet towards commercial use and let the public benefit from it, not just the government. He was the NSFNET project manager, introduced UNIX to the army, and worked on developing ARPANET.  Source: Wikipedia  Technologies The first domain registered – on march 15th, 1985, the Symbolics Inc. registered their domain (Symbolics.com). It was the first moment when someone got their own autonomy over a piece of the internet.  Source: Wikipedia  NSFNET – the National Science Foundation created the NSFnet – National Science Foundation Network to help provide networked education and improved research practices. It grew into a couple of important computer networks and became essential for the formation of the internet.   Source: Wikipedia  Statistics 1 Domain names – the first domain name was registered on march 15th, 1985.

1986

The standard email routing system is developed by Craig Partridge. This technology routes emails through domain names, and the technology is still used today.

Source: Internet Hall of Fame

The iconic IETF 1 is held in San Diego, California. This was the first ever IETF meeting with 21 participants. The Internet Engineering Task Force is a global community of internet experts who suggest standards and architecture designs for the internet.

Source: Wikipedia

People Craig Partridge – born in Washington, Columbia District in 1961. He is a computer scientist that worked for BBN, chaired the Association for Computing Machinery, worked on the Internet Engineering Steering Group, and so on. His most recognized work is the mail and domain routing system. Source: Wikipedia Technologies Email routing system – the first email routing system enabled users to redirect or copy their email based on the conditions they set. This helped support the growth of the internet as older routers couldn’t keep up with all the emails being sent.  Source: Cision IETF First Meeting – held in 1986 with 21 attendants. The first meeting continued the world of GADS Task Force. Those first meetings were completely public and anyone could spectate. The goal of all the meetings was testing, reviews, development, specification proposals, drafts, and internet standards. Source: Wikipedia

1987

The release of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Internet” written by Ed Krol. Krol understood how valuable the internet can be for everyone, and especially for the academic community. However, he knew that academics weren’t using the internet properly.

This is why he made “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Internet” as a user-friendly guide on how to use the internet if you didn’t have any programming language. The guide later became the RFC-1118 of the Internet Engineering Task Force.

Source: Internet Hall of Fame

The internet continues to expand. Florencio Utreras, a Chilean scientist, helps bring the internet to his country. Chile is connected to BITNET.

Source: Internet Hall of Fame

Srinivasan Ramani started developing the Education and Research Network of India, also known as ERNET. He played a key role in setting up the first international gateway for ERNET, which linked it with Amsterdam.

Source: Internet Hall of Fame

In 1987, the connection of the whole of Southern Africa to the internet began. By the end of 1992 all the countries in the region were connected to the internet. One of the people that have contributed the most to this project is Anriette Esterhuysen. Due to her hard work, a huge part of the continent now had internet and email.

Source: Wikipedia

The African Information Society Initiative is formed with the help of Nancy Hafkin. This group is responsible for setting up email connectivity in the first 10 African countries.

Source: Internet Hall of Fame

This was also the year when GIFs were born. A group of developers from CompuServe including Steve Willhite found out about the LMZ compression algorithm. Its efficiency and lossless quality helped these developers create the first GIF ever, and GIFs became popular really quickly. Through them, the web was transformed into a more colorful place.

Source: Cnet

People Ed Krol – born in Chicago, Illinois in 1951. He was a distinguished network manager and internet enthusiast. Krol is best known as the author of “The Whole Internet” and “Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Internet.” Source: Wikipedia Florencio Utreras – born in Ancud, Chile in 1951. He is considered the father of the internet in Chile. This mathematician and programmer was in charge of connecting Chile to the Bitnet and created the National University Network, an academic network for the whole Latin America. Source: Wikipedia Srinivasan Ramani – born in 1939 in India. One of the most important internet pioneers of India. He helped develop and launch the ERNET. He also worked as the coordinator for the network and helped establish email and gateways for the ERNET. Source: Internet Hall of Fame Nancy Hafkin – date of birth unknown. Hafkin is one of the main contributors for the development of information technologies, electronic communications, and networking in Africa. The result of her work was the development of the PADIS network and she helped 10 countries get email in Africa. Source: Wikipedia Steve Wilhite – date of birth unknown. This computer scientist from America worked as a developer at CompServe. He is the main person behind the creation of GIFs, which were a standard until the PNG format became available. Source: Wikipedia Technologies The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Internet – this guide was published in 1987 and written by Ed Krol. It was the first ever commercially popular guide on internet use and history. It helped many people understand what it was and how to use it. Source: Wikipedia GIF image – Graphics Interchange Format was created in 1987 by Steve Wilhite and his team. This format supports 8 bits for a single pixel per image. Every image can reference its palette with 256 colors. This format was the first to support animations and give different color ranges for each frame. Source: Wikipedia

1988

The first Internet Exchange point is created by Dr. Glenn Ricart. This exchange point has connected all the TCP/IP networks run by the government with all of the commercial and other internet networks in the US. 

Source: Internet Hall of Fame

“The User’s Directory of Computer Networks” book is being written by Tracy LaQuey Parker. It’s one of the first really popular books about the internet. This book later became part of NSFNET’s historic record.

Source: Internet Hall of Fame

With the hard work and dedication of Dr. Kanchana Kanchanasut Thailand finally gets its own domain name.

Source: Internet Hall of Fame

Francois Flückiger organized the first-ever meeting of RIPE (Réseaux IP Européens), during which the organization itself was created. RIPE is a nonprofit organization focused on giving technical support and expertise for the internet infrastructure in Europe.

Source: Internet Hall of Fame

The first ever European Internet Service Provider is built by Daniel Karrenberg and his associates. While doing this, Karrenberg is also one of the founders of Reseaux IP Europeens as well as the founder of the RIP Network Coordination Centre – the first regional internet registry.

Source: Internet Hall of Fame

People Glenn Ricart – date of birth unknown. A successful entrepreneur and internet pioneer that has contributed to the development of the internet. He helped introduce ARPANET protocols to the commercial and academic sector. He also created the distributed mutual exclusion algorithm. Source: Wikipedia Tracy LaQuey Parker – born in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada in 1963. She founded the UTech Institute, was a CTO at Cisco, and is currently VP of Parker Solutions Group. Shes’s the author of “The Internet Companion” and “The User’s Directory of Computer Networks.” Source: Wikipedia Francois Flückiger – date of birth unknown. A French computer scientist working for CERN. He was instrumental in the creation of Ebone, RIPE, and CCIRN. He was also the chairman of Intel in 1988, 2001, and 2002. Source: Wikipedia Daniel Karrenberg – born in Dusseldorf, Germany in 1959. This internet pioneer and computer scientist helped create the EUnet and worked as a network administrator and scientific assistant at TU Dortmund. He is also one of the founders of RIPE and worked together with NSFNET. Source: Wikipedia Van Jacobson – born in the United States in 1950. This computer scientist is best known for his work on improving TCP/IP protocols scaling and network performance. His work is instrumental to the TCP/IP as we know it today and its role in establishing the internet. Source: Wikipedia Technologies & companies Internet Exchange Point – also referred to as IXP or IX. This physical infrastructure allows CDNs (content delivery networks) and ISPs (internet service providers) to exchange traffic between networks. They reduce the traffic that needs to be delivered through upstream transit suppliers. Source: Wikipedia The User’s Directory of Computer Networks – published in 1990, this book is the guide through internet networks. It helps readers learn how to use the internet while learning about all the research, academics, and discoveries that contributed to computer networks. Source: ScienceDirect RIPE – the RIPE Network Coordination Centre was originally the regional internet registry for Europe. But today it covers the Middle East, Russia, West Asia, and former USSR countries. It was the first registry of its kind with the job of overseeing internet numbers and registration. Source: Wikipedia EUnet – a network of UNIX sites in Europe that evolved into a commercial network EUnet. This was the first public WLAN and played a crucial role in using TCP/IP as a standard for internet connections in Europe. Source: Wikipedia Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) – one of the most important internet protocol suite protocols. It first complemented the IP. It’s a computer standard designed to establish and track proper network communications. All the major applications on the internet use TCP. Source: Wikipedia

1989

The World Wide Web is created by Tim Berners Lee. While working for CERN Lee puts the finishing touches to the World Wide Web. His partner on the project was Rober Cailliau, who secured funding. 

Source: CERN

The start of one of the most important projects for the internet beings in 1989. Alan Emtage starts working on a program called “Archie”, the very first search engine. Various techniques, structures, and designs that were used with Archie are still used in modern search engines. 

Source: Internet Hall of Fame

Tadao Takahashi starts creating the foundation for the Brazilian internet. The primary focus is on building an academic network, but after that, it becomes the backbone for establishing an internet connection for the whole country.

Source: Internet Hall of Fame

Dr. Stephen Goldstein starts working on global internet development. Goldstein works on funding and evaluation internet development initiatives around the globe. Over 25 countries have been connected to the NSFNET due to his work.

Source: Internet Hall of Fame

At the same time, an Australian scientist Geoff Huston worked on expanding the internet in his country from research and academic purposes to the general public. Together with Telstra, a company that provides communication services, he was able to deploy the internet on a large scale through the country, as well as a transit provider in the region.

Source: RogerClarke.com

1989 also marks the year when the first publishing system was created called the Wide Area Information Server or simply WAIS. It was made by Brewster Kahle along with the company WAIS Inc. WAIS was a precursor to search engines as we know them today. It was able to index lots of online data and make those resources searchable.

Source: Internet Hall of Fame

People Tim Berners-Lee – born in London, England in 1955. This computer scientist is the inventor of the WWW (World Wide Web). He created an information management system and established a communication between HTTP and Hypertext (server and client) using the internet. He’s also the director of W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). Source: Wikipedia Robert Cailliau – born in Tongeren, Belgium in 1947. He is an author, computer scientist, and informatics engineer. Together with Tim Berners-Lee he was responsible for establishing the World Wide Web. He also contributed to moving web development to the Web Consortium from CERN. Source: Wikipedia Alan Emtage – born in Barbados Island, Barbados in 1964. This computer scientist is best known for creating and implementing “Archie”, the first search engine before the Web Internet, which impacted the development of modern SEs. Source: Wikipedia Tadao Takahashi – date of birth unknown, born in Japan. Takahashi was the person behind the development of RNP, the National Research Network of Brazil. He was also the director of RNP for some time. Apart from spreading RNP to a public network in the country he was also a proponent of inclusivity for network development and management. Source: Internet Hall of Fame Stephen Goldstein – date of birth unknown. Goldstein is praised for his efforts on spreading the internet across the globe. He was a Program Director at the NSF. During that time, he started the ICM project and connected over 25 countries from around the world to NSFNET. He was also involved in STARTAP, a global exchange for fast networks used by the G7 initiative. Source: Internet Hall of Fame Geoff Huston – born in 1956 in Australia. An important computer scientist that brought the internet to Australia in the form of an academic network. He also connected this network to the global internet. Houston authored three books on ISPs. Source: Internet Hall of Fame Brewster Kahle – born in New York City, New York in 1960. This internet activist, entrepreneur, and computer engineer is a digital librarian and promoter of the internet. He founded the Alexa Internet and the Internet Archive. He also founded WAIS Inc. along with the WAIS system, a document retrieval system, and a precursor to search engines. Source: Wikipedia Technologies & companies World Wide Web – the WWW or the Web is a system of information where various web resources and documents are all marked with URLs (Uniform Resource Locators). They can be accessed via the internet and interlinked via hypertext. The resources are transferred with HTTP and can be accessed through web browsers. Source: Wikipedia The First Internet Search Engine – the first search engine was named Archie. It was made by Alan Entage in 1989 while he was a student at McGill University. It used script-based data gathering software combined with an expression matcher to find the right files in searches. Source: Search Engine History NSFNET – the National Science Foundation Network included various projects revolving around the internet. It started in 1985 and ended in 1995 and this network was directly responsible for creating computer networks leading to the development of the commercial internet. Source: Wikipedia WAIS – this text searching system is the precursor to search engines. It used an ANSI Standard and a set of protocols used for library applications. WAIS could search for indexes on other computers and it was the first ever client-server search engine. Source: Wikipedia Statistics 130,000 Hosts – In 1989 the total number of internet hosts was around 130,000. From perspective today this might seem as a small number. However, at that time it was a clear signal that the internet has a lot of potential for public success and use. Source: Netvalley 3,900 Domain names – The total number of domain names in 1989 was 3,900. It was the first time they were all accounted for. Today, we have over 360 million domain names. This just shows how much the internet has developed and how far it’s gone. Source: Netvalley

To Be Continued

Recommended reading:

• Who Invented The Internet? Internet History: 1828–1844 Timeline (Part 1)
• Who Invented The Internet? Internet History: 1845-1940 Timeline (Part 2)
• Who Invented The Internet? Internet History: 1941-1970 Timeline (Part 3)
• Who Invented The Internet? Internet History: 1971–1979 Timeline (Part 4)